unitardzfandomcom-20200214-history
United Football League (2014-present)
The United Football League (UFL) Is an American virtual professional football league founded by the owner of UnitardZ Productions, Zack Hardy. Consisting of sixteen teams, the UFL nineteen-game per-team league schedule leads to a playoff series consisting of three teams between their two conferences, the Atlantic Conference and the Pacific Conference, which lead up to their championship game at the end of the season, the League Championship. The United Football League was originally announced as the UnitardZ Legends Football League before being re branded and renamed to the UnitardZ Football League before the start of the inaugural season. The league was renamed again five years later as the "United Football League" once the trademark papers from the rebooted United Football League (that ran from 2009 until 2012) ran out. The first team to the win the Spalding Ball was the Connecticut Stampede, who defeated the Cincinnati Lynx in Spalding Ball II. The most recent champions are the Tampa Silverstars, who defeated the Atlanta Bravehearts 23-20 in Overtime at Spalding Ball V, to win their first Spalding Ball in franchise history. Season Format Pre-Season From 2014-2015, the UnitardZ Football League held a two week pre-season schedule. The pre-season would not count towards the regular season standings. At the end of the 2017 season, the UnitardZ Football League would announce that the commencement of the return of a pre-season would be discussed in the off-season in the aftermath of the league. Regular Season The regular season held thirty-six games before the playoffs, with the highest three standing teams in each conference reaching the post-season before the expansion of the league after the 2016 season. Following the introduction of four expansion teams in early-2017, the regular season went from thirty-six games a year, to forty-eight games a year. Typically, one week would be played over a stretch of two weeks, with half of the league's teams playing in the first week, and the other half of the league playing in the second week. When labeled, the six week season, would stretch over twelve weeks, and the weeks would be labeled by a one or a two. For example, the first half of the first week would be labeled, "Week 1-1" and the second half of the first week would be labeled, "Week 1-2" before transitioning into the second week. Before the start of the 2017 UFL regular season, It was announced that the league would no longer be holding games randomly throughout the week, and would instead have specific days of the week that games would be played, now that there were more teams. The league implemented a system, where out of the four games played in that calendar week, the first game of the week would take place on a Wednesday, being called "UFL Wednesday Night Football" while the remaining three games in that calendar week would be played on the following Saturday. This system was well received in the first implemented season, and would end up returning the following year. In 2019; the UFL transitioned the beginning of the season from starting in the middle of the summer, to the end of February roughly three weeks after the NFL's Super Bowl. The league also renamed itself to the "United Football League" and ended the double-week scheduling format, instead beginning a sixteen-week regular season in which teams would play one game every week, as opposed to every other week in the original format. The playoff format remained the same, and all sixteen teams in the league were given new logos, and the league's original logo was also updated, featuring a black football with "UFL" written in gray letters, and the laces and bands of the football being colored red on one side, and blue on the other to represent the Atlantic Conference and Pacific Conference respectively. Starting with the 2020 season, the league installed a new nineteen-game regular season, and cutting down the postseason to once again only include three teams from each conference, making the number of teams able to qualify for the playoffs from ten out of the sixteen teams in the league down to six out of the sixteen teams, further establishing the difficulty to make the postseason. Post-Season The United Football League has gone through a number of post-season schedules. The original format included three teams from each conference, with the first seed receiving a bye week and playing the winner of a two-versus-three seed game in the conference championship game for an opportunity to represent their conference in the league championship game. Starting in the 2017 season, the post-season was expanded to feature five teams from each conference, with the first-through-third seeds receiving a bye week as the fourth-versus-fifth seed game would determine the competitor for the top-seed in the divisional round, whilst the two-versus-three seed game would also be played in the divisional round. The winners of those games would play in the conference championship game with the winner representing their conference in the league championship game. Starting in the 2020 season, the post-season was cut down to feature three teams from each conference once again, with the same seeding-charts as the original format, however, the first and second seeds would be earned by the division winners from each conference, and the third seed would be determined by the higher second-place team from both divisions. UFL Seasons 2014 UFL Season - Connecticut Stampede def. Cincinnati Lynx in Spalding Ball I (Later referred to as "League Championship 1") 2015 UFL Season - Los Angeles Bolts def. New York Sentinels in Spalding Ball II (Later referred to as "League Championship 2") 2016 UFL Season - Vegas Demons def. New York Sentinels in Spalding Ball III (Later referred to as "League Championship 3") 2017 UFL Season - Connecticut Stampede def. Vegas Demons in Spalding Ball IV (Later referred to as "League Championship 4") 2018 UFL Season - Tampa Silverstars def. Atlanta Bravehearts in Spalding Ball V (Later referred to as "League Championship 5") 2019 UFL Season - Arizona Copperheads def. Atlanta Bravehearts in Spalding Ball VI (Later referred to as "League Championship 6") UFL Teams Atlantic Division (2014-present) Pacific Division (2014-present)